Podcast Intro Makeover: Revitalize Your Show With Licensed Podcast Music And A Captivating Script

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to Feed Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host Tracy Hazard. Today we're gonna talk about revamping your podcast intro. Really, we're talking about a makeover for your podcast intro, revitalizing your show. And there are really a lot of good reasons why you might wanna do that. And that's what we're gonna share with you today. And also how you can do it and not have it be so painful.

Like why you should do it might be actually the better place to start about that. But I wanna remind everyone that we had an episode last week about royalty free licensed music and the new legal entanglements and the music issues that are going on and pervasive right now as a shift is happening in a lot of these licensed music portals that provide them to us and us podcasters are the most dramatically affected by it. Because if you just used your music in one single video, it's done, it's over. Like chances of it coming up or being a problem is not going to happen to you. But when you use your music like you do in an intro again and again and again, you have to make sure that you're complying with the current license standards which have now changed and the process has now changed. So go listen to that last episode. If you have music in your intro and you don't know whether or not you're not 100% absolutely certain that you have the rights to use it today and going forward on all your episodes, let alone past episodes. So go check that out. So that's one of the reasons why we are having today's episode. Because if you're gonna have to change your music, now's a great time to rethink and revamp that podcast intro.

That's true. Cause in order to change your music, you've gotta re record it. Now let's talk about just briefly podcast intros and outros in general. Why do a lot of shows have them? Why is it maybe a good idea? And you know what? This is a choice. It's a style choice. It's not A requirement. There are some people start a podcast, they turn on the mic and say, hey, welcome to the show. And they're off and running. And there is no actual prerecorded intro or an outro. But for most podcasts, especially ones that are, I think in terms of business related podcasts, but even ones that are not business related have pre recorded intros and outros, having one is a way to just give a little more branding to the show and identity to the show. I like it as from podcast listening perspective. Cause when I hit play on and I'm driving from LA to Las Vegas or something, I've got all these podcasts queued up, I hit play, I hear that music, it's familiar to me. And I'm like, yep, that's the show I wanted to listen to. Just a little familiarity gets me in the right frame of mind. That's the show we're going to listen to. That's great. Then once I feel that I was like, all right, I want to get on with the show. Let's hear it. So you get a little branding. We don't recommend they be overly long, short and sweet. Introduce the show, welcome the listener, maybe introduce the guest of the show and then throw to it. Boom, done. I like it.

So the approach to intros and outros from I'm going to say other experts in the industry is very different than the way Tom and I approach it. And there's a difference between starting a brand new show and having an intro outro that is helping you introduce it in a much more complete way with the credibility of an announcer and like the whole process that you might want to do. And we're going to talk about that in a few minutes as we talk about the elements of this. But there's also the most important thing that you want to take into consideration when you're creating your intro outros after you've introduced your show after it started. And that is your binge listener. Someone who's gonna go from episode to episode to episode. And that's where most of the prevailing advice in the marketplace falls apart for you. This is one of the areas where we are looking tighter at. I have a show called the Binge Factor. So like it's something we've been paying attention to for a decade of having it. When Tom and I did our very first show and we were about, I don't know because we did a daily show, so we must have been like a month or two into it. So we probably had like 40 episodes or something. Like that. It was a lot of episodes. Someone emailed us and said, hey, I'm only halfway through your all your episodes. I've been binge listening all weekend and I'm hoping that by the time I get to the end you've answered this question. If you haven't, could you record an episode on this? It was a great email, but I looked at Tom and I went, somebody's binge listening to us in a whole weekend. Like, oh my gosh, I hadn't thought about my show consumed that way. It opened up our eyes to what is that? User experience. Because that's a super user. That's someone who cares about this topic, dying to learn something, and now has us in your ear constantly for all that period of time. You can't help but be influenced by us. So we need to make that experience as amazing as possible.

And also not be annoying though, right? Because when you're binge listening through a bunch of episodes, guess what? If you have a 60 second long or 90 second long prerecorded intro, people aren't going to keep binge listening to you for very long. And believe me, I review lots of podcasts every day doing these podcast power appraisals. And I can't tell you how often I come across an intro that's way too long. Especially today. What we didn't consider long 5, 6 years ago is now very long today for an intro.

That's right. So that's what you want to consider because not only are they going to hear the intro and however long that is, but they're hearing it bumped up against your outro. So now it's like sometimes four times as long because your outros are typically at least two to three times longer than the intro. That's what typically happens in the marketplace. So you've got all this space that just makes them want to skip and sometimes they can't and when they can't, they get annoyed. And that's the last thing you want is them starting a new episode, not in the right frame of mind. That's the whole point of the intro, is to set the frame of mind and the tone and let people know they're in the right place, they're at home, this is where they belong. Make them feel comfortable and open minded to the message that you're going to be providing them and the interview and the guest and all of the things that you're going to be bringing them next. So you want them to be open to that totally different play on YouTube. I just want you to realize we are talking audio. We're talking podcasts. Tom and I, because of how we record this live stream on YouTube and out there in the world in the video side of things, there actually is no intro outro. There is no bumpers. We put a thumbnail on it, but there's no bumpers. It just starts right into that sort of funny little conversation we had at the beginning about, are we live? Because, like, everybody does that. Right. But if you're really gonna be considerate about it, video start. And the first 30 seconds are absolutely critical to get something, a message across, because that may be all anybody ever watches of it. Podcasts are not the same thing. All you have to do is not annoy them to keep them listening.

That's true. And by the way, you just made me think, Tracy, note to YouTube. If anybody from YouTube is watching or listening, boy, it would be wonderful on these live streams that go up there if you'd let us trim a few seconds off the very beginning of that livestream video just to have it start at a more intentional point than are we live? Yeah, that would be nice. Okay. Sorry. I just had to get that out while it's fresh in my mind. So, intros and outros. So, Tracy, in our first podcast, how often did we change our intros and outros? We changed. And even our cover art and some of the things for our show almost annually. We would change it up, didn't we?

Yeah, because we recorded five days a week, so it would get old really quickly. So actually, we set a metric. We change it about every 100 episodes. So we would create a volume, and we'd spin that volume off, and then we'd start a new one. And we would redo our cover art and other things, too. So, like, we had every couple 100, we would redo cover art. So it was just kind of a metric for us because we had such an intense show. But now I pretty much just look at it once a year. I want to make sure not only is it still playing and has the same tone and the things that I wanted it to create, because the show shifts over time, I want to make sure that it's still doing what I want it to do, but it is necessary to fix your outro more often. So if I'm going to fix one, then I fix the other. It just might as well do it at the same time. Right. And I fix my outro because typically you have some kind of message about your website or about what social channels you're on. And that changes over the course of the year, like which ones we're focusing on may change. And so I want that outro to shift as well. Partnerships change, things like that. So if you're gonna make those changes, now's the time to do it all at once. Like we said, we have to make some music changes, so we might as well use that as an excuse to make the changes for right now. So there are three major characteristics to an intro. The outro has similarity to it, but remember, you've earned the right to give a little sales message. So you haven't earned that before you start. And anyone who tells you to put your sales message in the intro, it has diminishing returns, you will have less episodes listened to. It's across the board. That's what our statistics show. If you put sales messages in the intro piece of it or in the first minute of the show, you are going to have less listenership than anyone who doesn't do that. It's just. No, because I know that your intention for the show is to sell me something, so I'm already in the wrong frame of my mind to keep listening.

Yeah, you need to serve first. And we talk about that a lot. Right. You need to serve the listener first and earn the right to sell. And you will. And you absolutely can just don't have it. Be the first thing to do. Don't be too eager.

Right. And so that's why the messaging is the most critical part to this. Right. What message do I have to get across in that first 15 seconds? Is what Tom and I are recommending now for those binge listeners. And because it keeps you from making the mistakes of adding too much sales message or making it too promotional, too self aggrandizing. If we keep it short, you won't do it. And you're serving the user experience for the binge listeners. So that's why we recommend 15 seconds. The only thing you have to get across is are they in the right place? And then pass the baton of authority. That's it. Two things. Well, I'm just talking about the script right now. The messaging, functionally, the messaging, its only goal is to make sure that they know that they belong here. Right, Got it. And they belong here. And you're gonna be their guide because they need to know. Too often I get on a show and I don't know how to pronounce the host name and the intro never says it. It bugs you the whole time you're thinking about this. It's like, how do I Say that name like, is it hazard or hazard.

Or you mean as a listener?

Yes, because you can see it right there. It's like, you know the binge factor with Tracy Hazard, and you're like, is it a hazard? Is it hazard? Like, how do I say this name? It's one of those things that start to, like, creep into their head. So one of the things we want to do is remember this is your stage, this is your microphone. Just like you want to have happen at a good event. You want someone to pass the mic to you and the mic of authority. Right. And they need to say your name in that process so you don't have to do it. We do it. But that's because we're welcoming you. So we do it in a slightly different model, but that's totally our style. It doesn't have to be yours. But so often I don't even know the host's name, proper name on a show, and it bugs me.

That's a great point, Tracy. And it's reminding me of one of our longest running podcasters we've supported on at Potitize has a show right now called Change Proof. His name's Adam Markell. And the reason that you've reminded me about this is we have a pool of voiceover artists, lots of different men, women, ages and styles that our customers can listen to, and then choose a professional voiceover artist to be the announcer of the show and introduce them as the host. In the future, I think we'll be using a little more AI for those things. As that becomes more realistic. We're not quite there yet, but we're getting close. But what would happen is we would provide the script to the voiceover artist and unless we recorded and said, by the way, his name is pronounced Adam Markell, when they would read it, we would get back the first run at the voiceover as Adam Markle. And that is, well, exactly what you're saying. How do you pronounce this person's name? I hadn't really thought of it from your perspective before, but you reminded me of that story and I think it really emphasizes the point.

Well, because you don't want to sound stupid, like, this is what's going to hurt your referral to the show. So if I don't know, I was like, oh, I listened to this great podcast. His name is Adam. Something that doesn't help anyone. But if I know how to say your name, I'm going to remember your name. The show name that's going to help people follow you. So it is critically important that you do get this across and that it keeps it so you don't have to waste time dealing with that on your own. And it doesn't feel this uncomfortable thing of. It's easy for Tom and I to do it because there's two of us to introduce each other or introduce ourselves in that way because we're really introducing the other one. But it's kind of weird to do it for yourself. And so make the voiceover do it. It's just so much better. I mean, I always like to say the name of the show again, just to reiterate it, but you could also make a play on the name of the show or like make a twist on it. It says, get ready to listen to this guest's binge factor. Right. And so it's not quite the name, but it's an adjustment to the name. You can do that too, like as the toss. And that's what you want to think of it. It's like I'm tossing the mic, I'm passing the baton, I'm shifting the authority from that announcer to you. So that's the second piece. So after you get the messaging of, you got like the make sure they know why they're here, the name of the show or some kind of hi to the name of the show and the name of the host, you want to move into what's my voiceover? So who's going to say that? And too often we get hosts who want to do it themselves. And that's because they're following this intimate model that some podcasters and some podcast experts do it. And the real reason is, is that it is not anything to do with a good idea. Like, it's not a good idea. It's not professional. There's a rare cases where it is valuable to do that. Okay, I'm gonna say that there are very clear cases where the host should be the one who makes the voiceover announcement of his. Of his or her show. But for the most part, it should not be. It should be a voice of authority introducing you.

And we can give a really good example of this as well. And when you think about it, and I guess I want people to understand very clearly what you were just saying, Traci. It's really the exception to what I would say is the rule, or at least our recommendation from our experience to have use your own voice. Think of when you were last at any in person event and you had people speaking on the stage. How many of those people went up on the stage and introduced themselves to the audience. I bet none of them did. And this is really similar. And Tracy, I remember when you were speaking at a conference, boy, pre pandemic, I think it was 2019, the year just before the pandemic. And it was a new event, the first time this big event had ever been put on and they didn't have an emcee introducing people on the main stage. Main stage. So what'd we do? I went up there, grabbed the mic and got outta the crowd's attention and introduced Tracy and welcomed her to the stage. Because otherwise it's just really awkward just walking up there yourself to do that. So conceptually very similar here, right?

And so there are places where you want to use your own voice. There's a really great example. So I interviewed a woman who's actually, it's an anonymous podcast. She has the pseudonym and the podcast is for supporting sober living. And she particularly works with those that are high level professionals and public figures. And so the anonymity matters. So if she wasn't the one saying, I'm inviting you in to have a conversation about this, she's not creating that level of privacy and intimacy that she wanted as a part of her show if she allows some outside voice to do that. So she created a closed environment by using her own voiceover. That's a great example of when you want to do it. If you're leading meditations, Great example of when you want to do it yourself. You don't need another voiceover for that. There's not an authority transfer. But if you are trying to be an expert, a thought leader, any of those kinds of things, we need someone else to give us that boost of credibility so that when we start talking, they're listening. That's the whole point to that. So choosing a voiceover artist is something that is, I think there's somewhat preference. But the overall thing about the music, the messaging and the voiceover, that needs to exactly be the same. And those are the three major elements that you're going to be utilizing. We talked about music last week, but in choosing that, it needs to set the tone for how you want to start. So if you need to start from a place of Zen, then you need a voice that expresses that you don't want the opposite voice. Everybody thinks they need a show announcer, but there's definite case for you not to have one. Now, I prefer, personally, and this is my own preference, is the opposite sounding voice. So if you're a female host, a male voice helps, but it's okay as long as it's like if I have a high pitched voice, I need a low voice. We need to have an opposite timbre. So it's okay if you have a woman announcer and you're a female host. Like, I'm totally fine. Like there's no big deal to that. But what we need is to make sure there's enough distinction in the voice that does the introduction to the voice that's gonna be speaking from that point forward, we need to recognize them as different voices. Unless you fully intended them to be the same.

Because actually I've had that cause confusion among listeners with a show that had actually not the host voice, but a similar sounding announcer introduced them and people wondered, is that the host voice in the intro? And it's just really something unnecessary and not important and you don't want to cause confusion. So I agree with you, Tracy. Some distinction is important.

The second thing is, is that if the voiceover quality of the recording and your quality of recording needs to be equally matched. So I have had it happen where the voiceover at the beginning sounds like it's in an Xbox because very often a lot of these fiverr things record them on their iPhones and it doesn't sound good. But they are used to it being like edited out and taking out the sound and rebalancing it. And lots of companies do do that. But if you're not professional in editor and you know what to do to fix that, that recording is going to sound terrible against your recording or it can't sound so much better than your recording. That doesn't do you any favors as terms of listening quality and moving forward and getting someone to binge listen and come back again because they're like, oh no, the sound just went down. Like, you know it's not good.

Oh my gosh. We're podcasters. Audio is the first thing you should have completely dialed in to be the best it can be. And if that isn't clear to any of you existing and aspiring podcasters, please just know that your audio should always be the best or at least equal to everyone else's in your episode. Rare exceptions. Recording live at an event, there can be good reasons to do that. Your listeners will understand that. But definitely, please don't use a voiceover artist that is giving you poor quality, because fixing it is really a lot easier said than done. You need a good, clean quality recording if you're hiring someone else to record that for you.

And if you're paying them, they should be giving you that that's a part of it. Like, reject it. If you get one back from Fiverr and it's not good quality, just reject it outright. You have the right to have a good quality recording. It's expected. So make sure that that happens for you, and then make sure that your episode's recorded in a good way, too. So, like, try to keep that sounding equal. That's why it needs to be. Sometimes that happens. Like, you know, Tom, how the commercials on shows are so loud and it annoys the heck out of you.

Oh, on television, it really does. You know, you have your volume set how you want it, the commerce comes on and it bl. And if you're like me and late in the evening, you sort of snooze in your seat before you've gone to bed, it wakes you up. It's really annoying.

That's what you also have to do with your intro outro. Right? You really need to equalize it to the way you're leveling your sound for the rest of the show. If you don't know that, get in touch with a producer, make sure that they know what they're doing, or keep the sound from being overpowering in your intro to begin with. So that's something that we have. This high, low thing that happens is very disruptive in not a good way, because if they turn down the show, then they're like, oh, it's just only a little bit farther from them turning it off.

So.

Messaging voiceover music mix. The next thing is in the mix of things, people overpower the voiceover with the music. Now, I know you just paid for your music and you love it, but dial it down. When people are speaking, if they can't hear the words, then there is no point to having an intro.

Happens a lot, actually, with. Especially with do it Yourself podcasters. I mean, I'm sure some of you hearing this are great, and you're like, what do you mean? I'm do it yourself, and I know what I'm doing, and wonderful. That's great. I'm happy about that. But again, I mean, I review six to eight podcasts every day, and a lot of them, the music is way too loud.

Way, way, way too loud.

Because podcasters don't often listen to their own episodes. That's a scary thing, too.

That's what I want to point out to you. So there's a process that we go. We review intros and recreate them. So the first thing is, obviously we set the tone. The music is the easiest part for us to set the tone. So we actually usually start there. Then we're writing the description. So we've written our 4,000 character description for our show, and so now we have a sense of what that show is about. So now we wanna look at that tone of that and decide what words are we gonna use to make the introduction piece to the show itself. And so we usually pull from that next to create the script. So the script comes next. But before we provide that to anyone to mix it together, do anything else, or even give it to a voiceover artist, and we've written out the script. I record it out loud and listen to it myself. That's how I personally do it. It's how I recommend it. I know most clients don't. They'll just say it out loud to themselves and like, oh, that's fine. But if it's difficult for the voiceover artist to understand the words because it's written words and not the spoken words, and they don't feel free. Like, our voiceover artist is your brother. So, like, he'll push back on me. He's like, he's one of the many. Yeah, but he'll play with it. He'll give me what I asked for, and then he'll play with it. And I'm like, every time. His is better. First off, because he's a really good writer. And secondly, he's a writer in Hollywood, but he'll play with it because the spoken word is different than the written word.

And this is the number one reason why too many podcasts end up with intros that are way too long, especially DIYers. Because when you're writing that script and thinking about it and you're like, oh, I need to get this into it and that into it. And they're wanting to cram all these different things in to their intro, and they don't realize how long it's going to be until they get it back and hear it for the first time. And sometimes a client of Wrestle will require that, too. Nope, this has got to be the script. This is what I want. It's like, all right, I'll give you my recommendation. At the end of the day, it's your show. You can have it the way you want it. Inevitably, though, when they listen to, like, wow, that was really long. Yeah, I think we ought to cut that down after they listen to it. Right?

And it's a little harder to do with a voiceover artist to cut it down. Like, some of them are not easy to work with. And so like you. You end up paying for it again. So I highly recommend just taking a few minutes, record it on zoom, listen back to it yourself, and then go, oh, yeah, that's good. And look at the timing of it and everything like that. And then maybe even while you're listening to it, just hit play for the music. Because you might want to choose the section of music and specify, I don't like the first 30 seconds, but everything from there on has the right tone to it because sometimes we do that. So make sure you're specifying that as well. The next piece of this and the mixing of this that I like to also do. So we typically will have the voiceover recorded, have it sent back, have them listen to it. But if we've got an issue where the pronunciation of the name, a lot of times I'll also say send them my recording of it because it gives the sort of emphasis that doesn't come across in the script. So if I'm saying it with the emphasis on the words that I want you to hear, I want to emphasize, then they'll do it and emulate that as well. So sometimes sending them the audio file is just as good as sending them the script too. So I send them both. If that's the case, sometimes I also send them music. So your brother Christopher's awesome at this. If I send him the music, he'll time his speech to the music for me. But he's very capable. Like, there aren't many that are that good.

He's very advanced. Most voiceover artists don't do that, and we have to manage them more closely.

But yeah, yeah, and more what will happen is that you really need a good post editor who can spread the music out, if necessary, to kind of like or speed up a little bit of shorten the words or pull them together. And so they will do that. They try to hit it so that the crescendo hits at the introduction level or whatever. And so you just specify that after you listen to it the first time, you're like, you know, it'd be so great if my introduction ended on this instead of that music piece happening right afterwards. They can shift it and adjust that for you. Make that happen. Make it feel so. Make it everything work together to set the tone and the transfer of authority. That's its goal of the intro. So make everything work in concert together to make that happen for you. Now, the only other piece of advice I want to leave you with on this is to we leave a little extra room so it's okay, if Your voiceover is 15 seconds and your actual music and everything might be 17 seconds or 20 seconds, that's okay, because you might want a little bit of music. Because a lot of times when the podcasts start from the players, it's actually silent. So the last thing you want to do is start on word one. You need a little space before that starts, because sometimes the volume's not right either, and they have to turn the volume up. Like, it gives your listener and the app an opportunity to adjust if you've got a little buffer space in and around.

It also helps with transitions, where sometimes you'll do a crossfade between your intro to the beginning of the show and the music will fade down while the voice and the episode is fading in. And so, yeah, these are guidelines. We're not saying, hey, you can't have it longer than 15 seconds. This is not like creating a video for social media that can't be over a certain length or it's not going to be played. There's definitely some wiggle room here. But we're just saying, generally, you can accomplish an awful lot in 15 seconds. If it needs to be 20, make it 20. That's not the end of the world. Just please stay south of half a minute and certainly not a minute long.

Right. You can feel your outro. You've earned the right to do a little bit longer. And a really good binge listener can and will skip it once they've heard it the first time or if they're busy, it'll just play over and they'll like, oh, I heard that again. Oh, that was cool. So the other thing about I just want to make this message again from what we were talking about between video and podcast.

This is important.

Yeah. If you are putting out a podcast as a video. Right. And you have bumpers, which is typically what they call them out there. We call them intro outros because it's a little more podcasting, but it's bumpers either way. But they call them video bumpers. And the shorter the better, because in YouTube, in any video platform, the sooner you get to the content, the better off you are. And so keeping it really short and sweet, sometimes we don't even do our full 15 seconds on YouTube. For some of our clients, we will just do a visual transition because there's always that delay when you click start to a video. You miss a few words if you start right in, too. So we'll do like a transition where it's like an animation of the logo and A little bit of music, and then the whole thing starts. And it might say with Tracy Hazzard, like on the screen, as the graphic as it's transitioning to, instead of even someone saying it, it's shorter, sweeter on video. There's zero attention span over there.

There's also some more limitations on video, and especially where we're talking about revamping your podcast intro. Depending on how you've done your podcast, and especially the reality of video distribution platforms, when you update that intro and outro, you can't go back and change that on your videos on YouTube, they won't let you do it. When you put up a video, it's the way it's going to be for the rest of time until you delete that video or if you ever would delete that video off that platform. If you ever really need to fix something that badly in a video, you have to replace the video and then the views start all over again. There's lots of things that are really not in your best interest for doing that. So we tend to recommend with our customers, you don't change those videos unless there's something really bad. You just cannot have it up there. It's gonna do so much brand damage.

Change the thumbnail if you need to, but other than that, don't bother with the videos. And honestly, I'm so glad you brought this up, because this is really the final point that we really need to talk about, is like, now that you've got this new intro, how are you going to use it? What are you going to do with it? How are you going to play it? Are you going to start using it only in the episodes going forward? Are you going to change your entire show? If you change the name of your show, you might need to.

You might want to replace it for the past episodes. You're right.

Right. You might want to. But keep in mind that you might have also said the name of the show, like the binge factor wasn't the binge factor before. And so it was a spinoff called center of influence from feed your Brand. And so the first, I don't know, maybe a hundred episodes are center of influence. I think 80 episodes or something are center of influence. And so mentioning that someone's the center of influence, I don't think it would have confused anyone if I changed the beginning to the binge factor, But I didn't. I left them branded the way they were. And in our system, you can just start with intro outros going forward, but you can also make the choice to go back. So now, since then, for every episode that I've done that is branded the Binge Factor. Once I shortened my intro, I went from the point that the center of influence ended. I went from that point forward and changed all of the intro outros for myself so that it would be consistent and so that would be easy for us to be able to adjust those and have the consistency of those shorters. Because I know when somebody's going to binge on my show, they're going to binge on the entire show catalog. And I wanted that consistency to be there for them, so I do that. But I also have, like, we're starting a new version of the Binge Factor called the Binge Factor Deconstructed. It's very specific, totally different style episodes. I'm not gonna make the choice to go back and update my past episodes. So this is a very important point for you to make a decision about whether or not it's necessary. If it's not necessary, do not fix the past episodes. But if it is part of your listening experience change, then, yes, do it.

Well, Tracy, I'd like to just take a moment here to address some of the technical realities of this. I'll try not to bore everybody. I'll do this kind of quickly.

I'm so glad you're gonna do this. Cause to know that there's a system for doing it that makes it easier to make this choice.

Yeah, I'm really not gonna make this a how to episode at all. But I want everyone to understand, and I'm sure many of you that have edited your own episodes and edited everything right in to your final MP3 file, you're like, if I were to change that intro now to on the old episodes, I'd have to re edit that whole thing and. And re encode it, re export it, and upload it and all that. And you're not gonna do that. We didn't do it with the first couple hundred episodes of our first show either, because it was gonna take a lot of work. We were gonna have to pay someone a lot of money to re edit all those things. So we're not suggesting you do that. And in the old school of podcasting, you wouldn't. Cause it takes so much work. But as Tracy and I became more experienced podcasters and realized we wanted to change these things up periodically, and as we were building the poditized platform, we realized, why can't we make it so that the intro and outro can be replaced? And so we built the technology and the platform to do that. And most podcast hosting platforms don't have the capability. Poditize does. So I'm just going to briefly share my screen. And so for those of you listening to the podcast, you might want to go check out the YouTube video for this portion. I'll try to be a little descriptive, but what we've got in the show settings and I'm showing feed your brand show settings right now on Poditize, I'm going to scroll down in those show settings to the intro and outro section. So you can see here we have this play bar here represents a very long by our standards. And I'm sure we're going to update this soon. Pre recorded intro, it's actually 43 seconds long. I now realize we have egg on our faces, Tracy, because we're not practicing what we're preaching here in feed your brand.

No. Yeah, I tricked you. I replaced it.

You did?

Yeah. This is the old one. Oh, I had already put the new one in, but I changed it back.

Oh, okay. Okay. Well, great. Anyway, so you have your prerecorded intro here and your prerecorded outro and you can replace them or change them at any time. So when we go and upload an episode and this is the form that is a whole, you know, you've uploaded your MP3 file, it's 43 minutes long here, and you check a box, add the intro and add the outro. And that can actually be a default that those boxes are already checked. So you only edit and produce your middle part of the MP3 file and your intro and outro are added by the system. And if you notice it said here, you can enable a 4 second crossfade transition for your intro and outro if you want. And then there you go, the system adds it. Now, why do this? Why deal with these different components? Well, at any point a poditized podcaster can go back to their show settings and say, all right, I'm uploading new intro today. I'll leave the outro alone. I'm fine with that. And when you save this the system, it'll ask you, do you want to replace all of them from the past or do you only want to use it for new ones going forward?

That's that checkbox that says enable for new episodes by default too, to make sure that you're going towards with the new ones. Right?

Yeah, forward with the new ones. Right. And, well, that also does the automatic enable. It checks the box for you automatically in the episode form. Yeah, that's what that does. So basically you have the option if you've published all your episodes on and when we're producing for our customers, we use this system so they have the flexibility going forward to change the intro and retroactively change it on all the episodes.

And you click that box right down there. Go down to the bottom because it's right there. It says reprocess. Reprocess. The published audios of all existing episodes for the show.

Yeah, of all existing episodes. And it gives you a big warning because you're going to change this. You've got to type the word in proceed before you save to move forward. Because we want to make sure you really meant to do it.

That's right.

So it's a little bit of a safety check there. Or you don't. You just upload the new one. And every time you go to upload and publish a new episode, you still will add the new intro and outro because that's what it will do here. Now, Tracy and I on Feed you'd brand we publish an episode every week that's called Up Next. And it's led on Mondays. It's a very short, like three minute episode. Either Tracy or I record that.

I think it's called Next up.

Oh, next up. Not up Next. Sorry. Well, you know, close enough. Next Up. That tells people what our livestream is going to be about. So we're letting our listeners know. Hey, if you want to get the information first, we're live on Wednesdays. Here's how to come and get it. Or you wait a few weeks and it's coming out as a podcast episode. So we created different intros and outros for that. So what we did is used our ad system and here you can see Feed your brand preview episode intro from Tracy and Outro. And so when Tracy records it, we use my intro and outro. When I record it, I use Tracy's intro and outro. So we have different voice on the intro than we do in the episode. We talked about that already. But I'm using our ad system to kind of hack that because we've got multiple intros and this is gonna lead to sort of a mother of an invention here. But you can see this is a two minute episode which was the next step for this week's livestream that we're having right now. Revamping youg Podcast Intro and I trimmed a little off the beginning and end because I just recorded it raw. Didn't really use an editing software, just trimmed off that dead error on the beginning and end and then used a pre roll ad spot. And you can see here in the drop list, I chose the free year brand preview episode intro, so. Oh, you recorded this one?

Yeah, I recorded it.

Yeah. So I used my intro. Yeah, my intro. Cause it's your voice in the episode. And then a post roll which just is. Were the same timestamp as the trimmed from the end where I put on the outro and then when I save it, but it ends up. I'll show you. Actually, when you look at the next step in the detail, you'll see the Original audio is 2 minutes and 35 seconds long. But when I've added that intro and outro, it's 10 seconds longer. We have really short intros on these, but that's all we needed. So 2 minutes and 46 seconds is the published audio. So anyway, you're not going to go on like that. I'm going to bore some of you people that are not into the tech. But what that has led us to realizing though Empoditize gets what's coming up next on our platform. We're doing an update here in just a little bit where you can actually have multiple intros and multiple outros. Cause some people have different kinds of episodes, guest episodes, non guest episodes, different formats of episodes. You might want a different prerecorded intro for those. And so now we won't just have one. You'll be able to choose between. I'm going to set the default at 3. But anyway, modern tech helps make it easier for you to podcast and provide the best message you want to your listeners.

Okay. So I know this would be a lot more work, uh. Oh, well, a lot more work for the podcaster. Right.

Oh, okay, okay.

Or for who was ever editing your show. Right. Could you use that trim from beginning to trim the original audio and then add new intro outros to someone who already doesn't want to use an editor but wants to change their intro outro?

Oh yeah, we do that all the time. You can do that. So you're saying on your previous episodes, if they had the intro, what we call baked in, meaning it's in that MP3 file because they didn't use our system. Yes, you can trim. Let's say you had a 30 second long intro, can use our trim from beginning, set it for 30 seconds, it'll cut that off and then you can add the new intro. Where it gets tricky is if you actually did a cross fade, if you faded the music out while you started Speaking in the episode gets pretty hard to make a clean cut. If you had an actual gap of even a very fraction of a second of silence, it's a lot cleaner. But we actually have used that for customer that came to us after they already had 100 episodes published. And those intros were edited in the old way the hard way. We can trim them off, add a new intro. But how clean is that transition? Most people won't notice it. It tends to bug, I guess the show owner or host more because to them it's not perfect. And if you're watching, listen to the podcast, I use some air quotes there. It's not perfect that perfectly clean.

But your listener will just to write it off as a app glitch.

It's an older episode, you're gonna get a lot of plays of those. But there may be a really good reason why having the new intro is more important than making it perfect. And I'm a believer in that too.

Yeah. So there is a way for you to transition to using our system and still do that without using an editor. And that's the most important part. Half of what we invented at Pottitize was so that I didn't have to pay our son in law to re edit everything. So like the whole ad system came because he's like, well, because he was our very first editor and he would be like, well, it's going to cost just as much as it did to edit it the first time to take that out. No, I'm not doing that. And so mother of invention. And here we go challenged me.

She's like, tom, figure it out. Let's find a way to fix this.

And that's how we have an ad system. That's how we have the intro outro system so we don't have to edit. And look, we have a team of editors and we still don't want to do it.

Well, it just leaves so much more practical flexibility for your show going forward when you use some of these tools because you don't have to leave old outdated segments within your episodes permanently and just say, sorry, they're old. That's the way it is.

Yep, absolutely. I mean it's the thing that I say this again and again on the show that I'm so excited about podcasting because it has this complete business flexibility that nothing else does. Your YouTube's, as Tom pointed out, done. Like when something's wrong with it, you just might as well delete it. It's gone.

And you can't put your own ads within your videos. You can't do that.

Everything about the video system is so much tighter and so much more closed. But podcasting is flexible. Your websites get outdated really quickly, and they are a lot of work to update and correcting blogs and, like, it's a slog over there to do all of that. But podcasting, you make one change, and now all of a sudden, every intro outro is brand new. Your show sounds. It sounds fresh, it sounds exciting, and it's up to date with the tone and messaging you have for your business today. That's great. Like, I don't have to think too hard about all the links I have out there and, like, all this technical stuff, it's just done. That's why I love podcasting.

All right, Tracy, let's leave it there for this episode. Thanks for listening, everybody. You can find the blog post for this episode on podcasters united.org and we'll be back next time with another great episode.

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